Many people are familiar with the television shows, Hoarding: Buried Alive, on TLC or Hoarders on A&E. These reality TV shows feature collectors and their families. The show's teams follow collectors for a few days to study how hoarding affects their daily lives. A professional organizer and therapist go through the house to see what the hoarder is collecting. The houses are disgusting; Often there are rodents, cockroaches, piles of paper and trash everywhere. The public sees interviews with members of the collector's family. The therapist and professional organizer help the hoarder and his or her family deal with the compulsive behaviors and attempt to help the hoarder clear out the house. Most of the time, by the end of the episode, viewers see the Hoarder making huge progress in dealing with his illness; However, not all cases end in great success. These TV shows usually show cases who successfully clean their house and deal with their mess. Most people who struggle with hoarding aren't so lucky. Hoarding: Buried Alive fails to show how hoarding can be treated. Obviously they get a therapist and show a clean house, but most of the time that's not enough (Starr). According to Thérèse Borchard, between 700,000 and 1.4 million people are affected by hoarding in the United States alone. Hoarding affects not only the hoarder, but their family as well. Hoarding makes living conditions cluttered, creates disorganization within the household, and results in extreme stress for both the hoarder and the family member. Treating hoarding is a difficult task because most hoarders do not believe they have a problem. Hoarding can be treated with medication or cognitive behavioral therapy...... middle of paper ......ve a mutation in their brain. “In collectors, patients had less activity in a part of the brain (called the posterior cingulate gyrus) that involves visual processing” (Saxena). Because more and more cases are appearing, doctors and scientists are starting to take this problem more seriously than in the past. There is no cure for hoarding and, as with OCD, there probably never will be a cure. There are things that alleviate the symptoms and make life a little easier for collectors. Medications used for depression and OCD may benefit the hoarder. These medications can sometimes reduce symptoms, but they do not work for everyone with this terrible disease. Therapists and organizers can also help, but nothing can be done to cure hoarding. The number of collectors seems to increase every year. People need to take it seriously.